Better Off
by rosehathawhey
Summary: After the Grady exchange goes wrong, and Noah ends up being killed by Dawn, Beth insists on honoring his wishes. She, Daryl, Rick, Michonne and Glenn go out in search of the community where Noah's family once was. When they find it destroyed, Beth and Daryl have a conversation about loss in this world they now live in.


**Author's Note: Hey ya'll! I haven't updated Out Of The Woods in forever, and I'm sorry about that. After 5x10 came and went with nothing I just kind of lost my motivation. This is kind of my way of beginning to get it back. It's an AU one shot where Beth survived Grady, but Noah did not. She takes Tyreese's place in going to check out Noah's "safe zone". I hope everyone enjoys it and I'll try my hardest to get the next chapter of OOTW up ASAP! It's hard between full time school and full time work but I promise I'll work my butt off to finish it soon!**

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Daryl hadn't expected any good to come of it. Beth had. Rick had. Maggie had been too preoccupied with hovering over Beth to care one way or another.

But Daryl hadn't believed. Not the way he'd believed about Beth. She'd changed him, his way of looking at the world, but there was a limit to a person's faith. Or, at least, there was to Daryl's faith.

It just seemed too good to be true: a safe zone. A place with walls? Daryl had known that there was zero chance of a community like that making it. In the prison it had been easy. They'd all been in one confined space. It was easy to defend... Until The Governor had rolled up to the gates with a fucking _tank_.

Living in separate houses though? There was no way that the people who thought that was a good idea were still alive.

And he'd been right.

The little town had been completely ransacked. Not by walkers, but by people. Some sick fucks who apparently carried bits of walkers around with them. He wasn't even gonna try to figure that one out.

Daryl had hated to see the way Beth's face fell as they'd walked through the gates. All that the girl had gone through and she was still hoping for the best. A few years ago he would've considered someone like that crazy. Now it filled him with an embarrassing amount of affection.

Apparently apocalypses change a man in ways he wouldn't expect. Or maybe that was just Beth who had done that for him.

"I'm sorry," was all he could think to say. He reached out his hand to squeeze her shoulder, but stopped himself. They hadn't exactly gotten a chance to talk since Grady. Not alone, at least. He wasn't sure if... Well, he just wasn't sure.

Beth took a deep breath and steeled herself, pained expression turning neutral, before turning to Rick and saying, "We should at least check for supplies."  
Rick nodded, his eyes never leaving the fallen town. "Yeah," was all he mumbled before taking a step further into the gates.

"Hey, wait!" Glenn called out, grabbing Rick's shoulder and pulling him back. "We need a plan first, man. We don't know what's in there. Whoever did this could still

be here, or a herd of walkers could've easily wandered through the open gates."

Blinking heavily, Rick seemed to take a minute to understand what Glen was saying. Brow furrowed, Michonne caught Daryl's eye. With a nod she seemed to say "You decide what to do."

"Alright," Daryl cleared his throat and waited for everyone to look at him. "I want to spend as little time inside here as possible. Let's split up and scrounge up what-"

Before he could finish, everyone had begun to take off in different directions. He didn't move, unsure of who to follow.

"Come on," Beth stopped after a few steps and turned back to him. A small smile spread across her face that Daryl couldn't stop himself from returning. "We both could use a change of clothes."

"Don't know what you mean," he forced his face into an offended expression as he moved to match her stride.

"You stink," Beth supplied.

Daryl let his arm bump hers just enough to make her sway off balance for a moment. "Well you ain't exactly smelling like a bunch'a roses, are you?"

Her nose wrinkled as she thought about what he'd said. "You're right," she admitted with a laugh. "We could both use a shower."

Before he could stop himself, the thought _'we could always do that together_' had flickered through his mind. Feeling his neck get hot, Daryl hoped like hell that she couldn't tell what he was thinking. But when he looked over at her he was mortified to see that she was bright red too, and staring firmly at the ground. Fucking fantastic, now she was gonna think he was a pervert. Unless the blush in her cheeks had come about for the exact same reason that his had.

Probably not though.

"Wanna try here?" Beth asked as they slowed in front of a small yellow house.

Daryl mumbled his agreement and pulled Beth behind him as he banged on the doorway. There was a moment of silence, then a groan and the shuffling of feet. When he saw the walker round the corner into the front hallway, Daryl shoved Beth back as roughly as he could. He barely registered her gasp and the thump of her hitting the ground before lunging at the walker.

The kill was swift and easy. It had been an old man before turning, and the decaying of his body had made it even weaker than it had probably been before the world ended. Daryl pulled the corpse carefully into the home's dining room. There wasn't a blanket to cover it with, so he simply laid a cloth napkin over the thing's face.

"Guess that's good enough," Daryl turned to make sure Beth agreed.

She didn't seem to notice what he'd done for the walker though. In fact, she looked livid as she stalked over to him, hand rubbing roughly over her butt to wipe the dirt off.

"What the hell was that, Daryl?"

He couldn't help but cringe at her tone. "What?" His voice cracked, making him cringe again.

"Pushing me away like that. It was a damn walker, I know how to handle a walker."

"I just-" Daryl hesitated over his answer. Why _had_ he pushed her away? She was tough, she was smart. She could handle a hospital full of crazy people so of course she could handle a walker. "I- I don't know."

'_Don't die on me now_,' was what he didn't say.

Beth let out a sigh, her face softening at his obvious discomfort. "Just please don't treat me like Maggie. I know she's just worried but I can't stand the constant hovering from her. She actually hit a can of beans out of my hand the other day because she thought it was too hot." Daryl cracked up at that. It was true, he had seen Maggie do it.

"I just don't want you to act like that around me too," she continued when his laughter faded. Beth paused. "Although I don't mind the hovering so much."

Beth didn't look at him as she spoke those last words, and he was glad for that. The smile he couldn't contain would have given him away. He was probably imagining it but for a second he thought he saw her smile too. Christ, he was turning into some stupid teenager. Except he hadn't even acted like this around a girl when he was an actual teenager.

Unsure of what to say next, Daryl let out an awkward cough and hurried into the kitchen. The cabinets were mostly empty, save for a long expired jar of ketchup. There was a drawer full of cooking utensils though. As Daryl stood over it and contemplated whether or not there was anything of use inside, Beth popped her head into the room.

"Any pig's feet?" She giggled and scurried away before he could answer. Her laughter sounded off the walls as she creaked up the stairs.

Shaking his head, Daryl tried to turn his concentration back to the task at hand. All of the cutting knives had been pilfered, not that he would have grabbed any. Most of them wouldn't have held up against a walker's skull unless it was seriously decayed.

After grabbing a can opener and a bottle opener, he set off after Beth. Hopefully someone in this town had an actual hunting knife laying around. They were short one after Eugene had somehow lost his in their rush to leave the hospital. The idiot could barely defend himself with one, but he should probably still have some kind of knife.

A large thump, followed by a shriek had Daryl skipping the last five steps and sprinting down the short hallway. "Beth!" He shouted as he burst into the room that the noise had come from.

Beth stood in the center of the bathtub, looking sheepish, with a shower curtain spread at her feet.

"I lost my balance," she admitted as she reached for a bottle of shampoo on the shower's far ledge. "This is some seriously expensive stuff. Probably expired, but still..."

Daryl examined the plain looking bottle that she held out for him to see, eyes glittering with excitement. Obviously the money they spent on the shampoo wasn't going towards making the bottle fancy looking.

"I ain't carrying that around for ya," he answered gruffly. Beth hadn't seemed to notice his mad dash to get to her up here, but Daryl was still embarrassed. She'd just told him that she could take care of herself and yet here he was, trying to slow his heart rate as he saw her standing safely in front of him.

"Fine," Beth stuck her tongue out at him as she shoved the shampoo bottle into her backpack. "But if you're gonna be a sass about it then you're not getting any. And trust me, you REALLY need it."

Daryl opened his mouth with some retort but it fell away before he could speak. She was right, he really could use a decent wash. "You check the bedrooms?" He finally asked her.

Beth burst out laughing at his obvious avoidance of her comment. Probably just to rub it in, she hip checked him as she moved past him out of the bathroom. Daryl shook his head and surveyed the bathroom for anything else she might have missed. Which, of course, she hadn't. The medicine cabinet was wide open and clearly scavenged through. There was a definite sense of pride that welled up inside of him as Daryl realized-

Suddenly Beth's hand was in his, fingers interlaced, and tugging him along.

"Come on! I saw you all out of breath when you came up the stairs. If you're gonna hover," her squeeze on his hand turned painfully tight for a moment and he let out an involuntary hiss, "then you might as well do it right. One of the bedrooms has a nightstand full of vitamins. Maybe some of them aren't expired."

She tugged him along like that through the rest of the house. Only letting go when one of them needed to put something into their packs. Even outside they stayed like that. Beth didn't seem to think anything of it, but Daryl looked around nervously every few moments. He hoped she thought that he was just keeping track of walkers. Really he just wanted to make sure that no one in their group saw them.

"They went to the other side of the town. You can relax."

Daryl cringed internally at her understanding of his actions, but he wasn't about to admit it to her. "I was just looking for walkers," he defended.

Beth hummed in that way women always did when they didn't believe him. Great.

"You know, they already saw the ridiculously long hug outside of the hospital. This probably won't mean much to anyone. And actually," this time Beth was the one who sounded embarrassed, "we should probably talk about some stuff soon."

Daryl grunted in agreement.

After that neither of them spoke for a while. Searching through each of the different houses, they only dropped their hands when checking for walkers at a home's entrance. Even inside the houses they checked all of the rooms together. It took twice as long but Rick, Glenn and Michonne could wait, for all he cared. He wasn't letting go.

It didn't feel awkward, even after Beth's suggestion. In fact, her suggestion to "talk" didn't leave him with a sense of dread the way it always had with women in the past. Guess the end of the world really did change a person in ways that he didn't expect. Or maybe, again, that was just Beth.

At the eighth home they entered into everything was fine, no walkers lunging at them. So when Beth gasped and dropped his hand, he had his crossbow out before a full second had even passed.

"No," Beth gently pushed the weapon down and reached for something on the living room wall. She held it up to him, eyes serious, and Daryl understood why.  
It was a picture of Noah. Noah and two young boys who stared back at him with carefree smiles that he hardly understood anymore. Suddenly the air in the house felt thick. The walls filled pictures of a family that he knew for sure were gone.

"Daryl," Beth's soft touch on his forearm brought him back to the present. "What should we do now?"

He wasn't sure what the answer to that question was. So instead he took Beth's hand in his and they stood together in silence. Until, somewhat unexpectedly, Beth reached out for him.

She had to stand on the tips of her toes, but somehow she managed to wrap her arms around his shoulders. Her head nestled into his neck, Daryl felt a sense of safety fall over him like a veil. They were standing in an open hallway, not entirely sure of what was inside this home, and yet he couldn't bring himself to push her off. Letting his guard down like this was how she'd been taken last time, he knew that, but he still didn't move away.

Beth's grip around his shoulders tightened and so he returned the pressure by raising his arms to envelope her.

They stayed there for longer than they should have. Even when the sound of moaning and a slow thump let them know that they weren't alone in the house. Part of it was that he simply didn't want to let go of Beth. But he also knew that what he would find further into the house was one of Noah's brothers. Or maybe his mother. Daryl didn't care to know for sure.

It was Beth who finally stepped away. She didn't pick up his hand again as she dropped her arms. In fact, her face quickly transformed from one of vulnerability to a hardened gaze that set his nerves on edge.

"You open the door, I'll make the kill."

For a second he almost protested, but he knew better. She would be angry if he insisted on being the one to do all of the dirty work. It was one of the things he'd grown to love about her.

He simply nodded and followed her down the cramped hallway, trying to ignore the pictures that looked down at him from every angle. When they reached the door where the noise came from, Daryl refused to let himself hesitate. A jerk of the head from Beth and he flung the door wide open.

It wasn't quick. Beth had been on edge, waiting for a pounce, but it never came. Instead, a kid that probably once looked just like a miniature Noah shuffled out. His cheeks sunken in, combined with the faster decay of his body over the others they'd seen, made Daryl's skin crawl.

He had no idea what had actually happened here to Noah's brother, but he'd seen enough in these past few years to make assumptions. This walker, growling as he slowly moved towards Beth, didn't have any obvious kill wounds on him. No blood soaked through his clothes, no punctures on his skin. He'd starved to death. The quick decay and a sallowness to the boy's skin made it glaringly obvious to Daryl.

Beth let out a low, sad sigh. Taking a small step forward, she reached out to the boy. It leaned into her, mouth opening as it fell toward her neck, but she had shoved her knife through it's skull before it could make any progress. With that, she turned and silently walked away into another bedroom.

The whole thing had been so quick and anticlimactic. Daryl stood awkwardly in the hallway with this decaying child. He knew what Beth would want him to do, so he obliged. To be honest, it was what we wanted to do now too.

Crouching down to grab the boy, knees creaking in a way he'd never admit, Daryl grabbed underneath the boy's armpits and dragged him back into his bedroom. The boy's body was so light that lifting him onto the bed barely took any effort. Finding a small blanket that hung over a rocking chair in the corner, he covered the boy's face and torso as best he could.

He found Beth in Noah's room. Or, at least, he assumed it was Noah's room. There were pictures of all three of the boys together, just like in the hall. But there were also ones of Noah and others who looked to be about his age. Beth stood in front of one above Noah's dresser.

It showed Noah with his arms awkwardly locked around a gangly redheaded girl, and two other couples in the same uncomfortable pose. The boys' too large formal wear and the overly shiny material of the girl's dresses only served to highlight their youth. Almost all of them wore braces.

"I wonder if we would've been friends," Beth breathed out a laugh that held no trace of humor. "You know, before all of this happened."

Daryl shrugged, unsure of what the answer was. He hadn't paid much attention to Beth before they'd gotten to the prison. Not even when she had gone into that weird, catatonic state after the barn. Things had been too hectic for Daryl to really care about the feelings of some teenager.

Which he could silently acknowledge was ironic considering that Beth's feelings were now always the first thing he thought about in any situation.

"I dunno. Did he sing?" Daryl finally answered. Beth rolled her eyes at his teasing tone, the ghost of a real smile threatening to spread across her face.

It faded quickly though, and she went to sit over on Noah's bed. Shoulders hunched as she stared intensely at her feet, Daryl didn't bother to hold himself back from going to sit next to her.

"Maybe it's better that he's dead. That he didn't see this. I- I-" Beth's voice caught in her throat, wet with tears that she was obviously trying to hold in.

Daryl simply put his arm around her shoulder, pulling her head to rest in the crook of his neck. She let out a watery sigh of contentment as her hand came up to fist in his shirt.

"You know, after my mom and Shawn, I thought I was going to die. Then Lori, then my dad. Everyone in between... It never got easier but I did start recovering quicker." There was long pause. "Not sure I'd want that for Noah, for him to get used to the people he loves dying. I really liked him. He was just good, ya know?"

Pushing down the unwelcome feeling of jealousy that rose up at that last statement, Daryl agreed with her.

"Yeah, he seemed like it. 'Cept for the time he was trying to hold up Carol and I." Beth laughed, it was a genuine one too.

"To be fair he was just trying to save me."

Daryl hummed in agreement and squeezed her arm gently where his hand had been draped over it. They sat in silence again after that, both lost in their own thoughts. He liked that she didn't need to jabber through every moment, that she enjoyed silence too. At least companionable silence. Not like the silences from when they'd first escaped the prison together. He'd just been awful then. Daryl knew why, and he was sure Beth did too. It was because,

"I'm shit with death. You at least handle it well. Let yourself feel it and move on. I just cry like a little bitch or bottle it up or somethin'." Daryl let out a snort. "Which is funny 'cause I've seen a whole lotta death. Even before the world ended."

"Guess I'm just more mature than you," Beth teased, then unfisted his shirt briefly to poke at his chest. "And don't be one of those men who think crying makes you a 'bitch'." She spoke the last word in a sarcastically masculine tone.

"I miss him," Daryl admitted. "Merle, I mean. Your dad too though. All of 'em."

"I kind of liked Merle, actually."

Daryl pushed back slightly to give her a look of shock.

"What?!" She defended, face burning bright red. "He called me a 'tough cookie' after I fired that shot in the prison. First person to ever use that word to describe me."

"Cookie?"

"Tough," she clarified, though they both knew she didn't need to.

"Yeah," Daryl pulled her back in. "Merle was smart sometimes. Although not sure how he called that one because he was shit at reading people. Always owed too much money after a poker game."

"I know," Daryl felt Beth smile against his chest. "You've told me more than enough stories that ended with you getting something broken for him."

"Used to things being ugly."

Beth sat up at that, but didn't lean away. A sad smile crossed her face as she touched Daryl's chin. He felt his heart speed up at the feel of her hand on his face. "They aren't so bad now though."

He snorted, "oh yeah, what makes you say that?"

She didn't answer, just scratched his scruff lightly. Her smile dropped as she turned her gaze to where her hand lay. Daryl swallowed heavily.

Beth pulled her bottom lip in to wet it, probably involuntarily. She looked lost in thought. And also like she might vomit, which was sort of how Daryl felt. The combination of lack of food and the nerves in his stomach couldn't be good.

He didn't dare make any sort of movement. Who knew what she had been through at Grady? Who knew what she was thinking now? Daryl had thought about Beth every day that she was gone, but he couldn't say for sure that she had done the same.

Still, he saw her face inch slightly towards his own. That meant _something_. Closer and closer, until she was just a blur of shiny blue eyes in front of him. And then they closed.

Daryl didn't close his eyes until a moment after her lips touched his own, soft but sure. He might not know how she felt about him, but she obviously knew how he felt about her. Beth's other hand reached up so that she cupped both of his cheeks. She smiled against his lips before he reacted by moving his own against hers.

He didn't mean to be a sap, but it felt damn near perfect. The sick feeling in his stomach faded into one that warmed him to the core. Her nails scratched lightly along his cheeks and it sent a chill up his spine.

Just as he moved to angle their bodies closer a shout rang through the house.

"Daryl? Beth? You here?"

Daryl shot off of the bed immediately, pushing Beth away from him a little too roughly. She looked shell shocked at first before bursting out laughing.

"In here," she called out to Rick and stood up from the bed. Glenn, Rick and Michonne all stomped into the bedroom in a way that made Daryl cringe. Between that and the shouting were they trying to attract every walker in the neighborhood?

"This Noah's house?" Michonne asked as she glanced at the photos on the walls.

Beth nodded and the three faces in the doorway turned somber.

"Alright then," Rick cleared his throat. "I guess we should go and figure out what the rest of the houses have got."

The three intruders all turned and walked away as obliviously as they'd entered. Both Beth and Daryl stood staring at each other for a moment before Beth moved towards him.

"We should probably search out for some moonshine in one of these places, don't ya think?" She squeezed his hand quickly before exiting in the room. Then paused and turned back to him, "and probably figure out a place where we can talk tonight."

Daryl scoffed at the obvious flirting in her tone. Not that he should have been surprised considering what had just happened.

"Come on," she called from down the hallway and Daryl realized he'd just been standing in the middle of the bedroom, a dumb smile spread across his face.

Trying to wipe away the smile, though he wasn't even sure why at this point, Daryl followed. For the first time in a long time he let himself feel excited.

"Well I won't be drinking no damn peach schnapps, that's for sure."

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**I hope everyone liked it! Comments are always appreciated!**


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